Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel11 October 2010

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is deeply disturbed by news reports that your company plans to participate, later this month, in the fourth annual Tel Aviv Dance Festival, an initiative sponsored by the Tel Aviv Municipality and cultural institutions that are complicit in maintaining Israel’s system of colonial oppression. Read more about Alvin Ailey: don't dance around Israeli apartheid

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is shocked and greatly concerned that UNICEF as well as one Palestinian and several international academics intend to participate in a conference organized by the Minerva Centre for Human Rights at the Hebrew University, jointly with the Van Leer Institute. Read more about PACBI: UNICEF should quit Jerusalem conference

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) warmly welcomes Elvis Costello’s cancellation of his scheduled performances in Israel. Costello’s decision is a great victory for the ethical responsibilities of international cultural figures, a key factor in the cultural boycott of Israel. Read more about Elvis Costello's Israel concert cancellation lauded

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel is gravely disappointed by the announcement that well-known, progressive artist Gil Scott-Heron is due to perform in Israel on 25 May. We call upon Mr. Scott-Heron, a member of United Artists Against Apartheid in the 1980s and a featured singer on the breakthrough song “Don’t Play Sun City,” not to play apartheid Israel. Read more about Gil Scott-Heron: don't play apartheid Israel!

A recent article criticizing the Palestinian Campaign For the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel’s (PACBI) position on the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (WEDO) is based on false premises, misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of the PACBI boycott criteria, and a misconception of the recent history of civil resistance in Palestine. Since the article insinuates that PACBI’s position on WEDO is inconsistent with its own principles, the record needs to be set straight. Read more about PACBI: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra violates boycott

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has recently encountered a number of projects that while intending to empower the colonized Palestinians, in essence end up undermining their will and choice of method of struggle for freedom, justice and self-determination. The publication of a new book entitled The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories belongs to this category. Read more about PACBI: Intellectual responsibility and the voice of the colonized

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) calls upon Elton John, as a world-famous artist and a public supporter of key human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Oxfam, not to perform in Israel, a state that maintains an illegal and inhumane system of occupation, colonization and apartheid and that has been widely accused by leading UN experts and human rights organizations, including Amnesty, of committing war crimes and other grave violations of human rights. Read more about Elton John: Don't stand on the wrong side of history again

In response to the recent decision by the Israeli government to upgrade the status of the so-called Ariel University Center of Samaria to a full university, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel reiterates its call for a boycott of AUCS and all other Israeli academic institutions due to their complicity in maintaining Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid against the Palestinian people. Read more about PACBI: All Israeli academic institutions complicit in apartheid